Impulse
by A. Windsor
Summary: One year after the end of Exile, Nyssa does something rash.


Author's Note:

This is set in the AU set up by my Season 3 fix-it fic, Exile. For this one in particular, though, you probably just need to know that Sara is alive, Ra's is a Nyssara shipper, and they have a little 10lb dog named Rocket. [Exile is about way more than that, lol, but it IS the relevant part here!]

It's fluffy y'all. It's so fluffy.

* * *

Nyssa remembers. She remembers soft fingers in her hair, twisting and curling, lulling her towards sleep. She remembers songs, so many songs, real and made-up, silly and haunting, that filled her head long after the one singing them was gone.

Gone, gone.

Her mother's chambers were a refuge. Pretty sunshine and bright colors and soft, soft pillows. Even her father was gentler and softer in her mother's chambers. He laughed more, and he rarely yelled, and he told her mother all the good things Nyssa had accomplished in her lessons. He did not often tell Nyssa about her strengths otherwise, merely her weaknesses, the areas she had to focus on in order to improve. To be worthy of the title he had already bestowed upon her in the quiet of her mother's chambers.

 _Heir to the Demon._

Nyssa was too young to really know what her mother thought about her little girl being molded in her father's image. Nyssa was too young to know if her mother really loved her father the way he clearly loved her.

That she was not too young to know. Because when she was taken from them when Nyssa was seven, Ra's did not put her body in the Lazarus Pit.

Amina Raatko was a formidable woman, for all her gentleness in the presence of her young daughter. Until later, when a little yellow bird laughed at his power and openly asked him questions, her mother was the only person, man or woman, who had ever challenged the great Ra's al Ghul.

She demanded respect. She demanded a place at the table. She demanded Nyssa's lessons include more than just violence and politicking, demanded Nyssa have just the smallest space to be a _child_ and not just an Heir.

And when the cancer ate at her body, when the dozens of doctors Ra's dragooned to Nanda Parbat declared there was nothing else they could do for her, even at threat of painful death… Then Amina Raatko made Ra's swear on his honor, in front of their daughter, that he would not place her in that Pit.

Ra's kept his promise, even when Nyssa wept and asked him to break it, even when she saw tears in his own eyes.

That was the last time she cried in front of her father without sharp rebuke.

Nyssa does not know, exactly, why her mother would not allow herself to be healed or brought back to life in the Pit. Maybe Amina told her, but Nyssa was so young, so scared, so sad, that everything about those final months of her mother's illness bleeds together, hazy and vague.

Nyssa did know this: that Amina believed in something higher out there, a god or a force that was not Ra's al Ghul. Maybe fate, maybe faith, Nyssa will never be sure. She used to tell Nyssa that she and her father were always meant to meet, that they had been set on these paths for a reason.

Maybe Amina did not wish to alter the path destiny had laid out for her. Maybe Amina simply found the unnatural powers of the Pit as unconscionable and unnatural as many who learned of them, a power not to be tempted, a price too high to pay.

And maybe, a tiny voice has always whispered in her ear, Amina Raatko was not as happy as Nyssa remembers her. Maybe Nyssa's mother found Nanda Parbat to be a cage as much as Sara once had. Maybe she had thought the disease that sucked her dry was actually an escape route.

Nyssa does not want to believe that. It does not square with the memories of warmth and comfort and love that she carries close to her heart. It does not square with the way her parents could make each other laugh, could tell stories that enraptured all three of them for hours on end.

But what faith could anyone put in the memories of a heartbroken child?

Still, the memories are all she has, and they were instrumental in keeping alive a part of her that allowed her to one day fall in love with that little yellow bird, to remember joy and safety and peace, within at least one room is this giant temple-fortress.

The memories of her mother, real or not, are better than some ever got, and so instead she chooses to be grateful.

* * *

"You don't approve of my decision, sister."

A statement, not a question. Talia has always been sure and bold in her speech. She is five years older than Nyssa, her half-sister, and she spends most of her time in Europe or the US (increasingly Gotham) running the legitimate businesses that front the League of Assassins.

"I did not say that."

"Not all of us grew up with a mother who rocked us to sleep at night and told us bedtime stories, little sister."

Nyssa winces, thinking of her mother.

"I wouldn't even know where to start at raising a child," Talia continues. "The same nannies that tended to our needs will do the same for his."

"I merely don't understand why you would bring the child to term if you had no desire to raise him yourself," Nyssa clarifies.

"You know that our father would be livid to know I terminated one of his line."

"He wouldn't have to know."

"Not all of us are as skilled at that, either," Talia notes. "How _is_ your yellow bird?"

"Sara is well, which is more than can likely be said of your tortured _bat_ who doesn't know he's a father."

Talia's carefully polished mask of disinterest slips for the slightest moment, but she slides a smile across her face to cover it.

"I think I might have missed you. Now come, our father has summoned us for what I'm sure is another of his speeches."

* * *

Ra's al Ghul sets his infant grandson in the lavish bassinet that sits in his lounge, by the head of the long table of advisors. He turns back to them, looking around the table.

"My grandchild must be kept safe at all costs, and I regret that means he must be raised away from Nanda Parbat. Not merely with nursemaids. He will need to trained and protected. He will need - "

"We will take him," Nyssa says suddenly, surprising herself as well as the rest of the table.

The room falls silent. She doesn't need to explain who "we" are.

"Is your Beloved trustworthy enough for such a task?" an older advisor asks. While the rank and file accepted Sara's chosen, Lazarus status at Nyssa's father's side easily, those of a higher rank still display some wariness.

Nyssa refuses to show her outrage, looks only to Ra's.

"She slew the Traitor on your orders, Father. Her loyalty can no longer be questioned."

Ra's nods easily. Sara has served him well in the last year since they returned from Starling, and they seem to have come to some kind of agreement. In fact, his favoritism towards her is likely the root of the old order's distrust.

"Such an arrangement shall be sufficient, yes," he says calmly, and Nyssa notes a smile quirking the side of his mouth, the smallest tic only she will see. "Who else would be better equipped to train and raise him than his own family? Only the Heir to the Demon could teach him to adequately become second in line for that name."

And now Nyssa has a feeling he planned this all along, even though the idea only entered her own mind moments before.

"If, of course, his mother has no objection," Ra's says, in a way that warns the price of such dissent.

Nyssa looks to Talia for the first time and finds she is giving her an unreadable look.

"I have none, Father. What a lucky little boy, to be raised by the Heir and her Beloved. The princely place he deserves."

And though she can usually see past whatever mask her sister puts up, Nyssa can't tell if Talia means it or not.

* * *

Sara is playing fetch with Rocket as the cats watch warily from on top of a couple bookshelves. In the last year, the three have reached a detente with the energetic new addition to their quarters, a detente mostly fueled by the cats taking the high ground. The dog bounds about with reckless abandon as usual, and Sara laughs warmly.

Nyssa knocks on the doorframe to announce her presence, though she knows Sara is aware of her. In her arms, swaddled in Egyptian cotton, her small nephew gurgles and squirms.

"Hi!" Sara greets brightly. "Did you bring the baby?"

Rocket trots over and sniffs suspectly at Nyssa's feet.

"Look at her," Sara laughs, "She's like, 'What is that weird human puppy?' Hey, Baby Damian. How'd Khala get lucky enough to have you?

Sara beckons for Nyssa to hand him over, and she kisses the one-month-old's cheek.

"I still can't believe Talia has a baby," Sara laughs, cradling him warmly. "And such a cute one."

Nyssa nods.

"Okay. Why are you so quiet?" Sara demands.

"I have done something rash."

"What?"

"It was decided that it is not safe to raise Damian here. And Talia wants little to do with him."

"Okay…"

"I have volunteered us to care for him."

"Oh."

Sara's eyes widen and she takes a few steps back, Damian still pulled close. She sits down on the couch.

"For…?"

"Until he comes of age, whenever my father believes that may be."

"How are we going to take care of a baby while your father is sending us on missions?"

"Our duties will be scaled back, and we will have the assistance of a full staff."

"Wow."

"Yes."

"That's _really_ something we should have talked about, y'know, together," Sara says. She still has that shocked, nearly panicked look in her eyes, but she looks down again to the tiny near-newborn in her arms.

"I'm sorry," Nyssa says honestly. "I… didn't mean to."

"You didn't mean to get us a baby?!" Sara exclaims.

Nyssa closes her eyes.

"That does sound ridiculous. It just… I found myself volunteering."

"And what does your dad think about this?"

"He seemed… pleased?"

"Well, that's always weird."

Nyssa finds herself smiling despite the serious moment.

"Yes. We could likely back out. It could be complicated but…"

"Well if Ra's is pleased you volunteered us, he'd probably be un-pleased if you un-volunteered us."

"True."

Rocket hops onto the couch, sniffing at the bundle of blankets in Sara's arms. One of Damian's little hands breaks free of the swaddling and waves in the air. Rocket licks it, and

Sara grins briefly.

Her face gets more serious.

"Oh, I don't know, Nyssa." She looks up, eyes as blue and clear as the sea she once pulled her from. "I chose this life. But he… He won't have a choice. And I don't know if I can be a part of raising a child into this."

"As I was raised into this."

Sympathy flashes in Sara's gaze.

"Yeah. And I mean, I really _don't know_. I'm not trying to say no and be nice about it. And that part's just the beginning! I've never even thought about whether I want kids or not."

Nyssa is equal parts shocked and not at all by the admission. On the one hand, Sara is absolutely wonderful with children, and Nyssa would be lying if she said their time last year with Sara Diggle hadn't planted a seed in the back of Nyssa's mind. On the other, until rather recently, Sara didn't even consider herself worthy to be around her adult family members, let alone an impressionable child.

"I don't know how my mother felt about the role I was raised into. You know my memories of her are more… sensory, than anything else. I wish she were here to give us some guidance on the issue," she says, a rueful grin crossing her lips. "But I do know that I did have a choice. Not the same way you did, of course, but a choice nonetheless. Damian will have a similar one. And I often wonder, when I allow myself to think about it, how I would have been different if my mother had lived longer."

"I don't want you to be different; I love you exactly as you are."

Nyssa smiles softly at her.

"I suspect all the parts of me you love are my mother's doing."

Sara looks like she might protest; Nyssa can already hear the _"I love_ all _your parts"_ on the tip of her tongue, but Sara must know that Nyssa already knows. Instead, she says:

"I do wish I could have met her."

Nyssa loves this woman.

"You would have gotten along very well," she says. She pauses for a moment. "Damian will be raised into the League with or without us. It does pain me, though, to think of him with only nannies and occasionally my father to care for him. Not when we could give him something more."

"Something more like a home."

Eyes down on Damian's little face, Sara voices perfectly the idea that's been swirling in Nyssa's mind since she first learned of her nephew.

"Yes, exactly. It will not be the most conventional of upbringings," she says, "But Damian was never destined for a conventional upbringing."

Sara grins, lifting a finger to trace Damian's arm.

"Okay," she breathes. "We can try."

Nyssa feels something new in her chest, a simultaneous lightness and fullness, and she comes to sit beside them, picking Rocket up when she won't move out of the way. She leans over to kiss Sara's cheek.

"And perhaps this will lower the amount of missions you must undertake."

Although it isn't to the extent it once was, although she has found a large measure of peace with the greater good the death they dole out serves, Sara still struggles from time to time.

"Nyssa… I don't need coddling…"

"Personally, I think raising an al Ghul child will be more trying than hunting marks."

Sara laughs, warm and bright. She looks down to Damian again.

"You hear that, D? Khala is already calling you trouble!"

The one-month-old has no response, just yawning sleepily. Nyssa leans over, head pressed against Sara's as they both look down at Damian. Rocket huffs out a sigh, laying down on Nyssa's lap. All of a sudden, everything feels very real, and very terrifying.

"You so owe me, by the way," Sara says, even as she tilts her head to kiss Nyssa's temple. "You volunteered us to _raise a baby_."

"It was rather impulsive of me."

"Well, usually your impulsiveness results in, y'know, dead guys or, well, nice things I shouldn't talk about in front of the baby. So you can see why I'm surprised."

Nyssa chuckles, running a hand over the soft, dark fuzz that covers Damian's head.

"I see," she affirms. "How am I going to make it up to you?"

"I'm holding onto this one. You'll know when I'm calling it in."

They stay like that, together on the couch, for beautiful, infinite minutes.

"Habibti, are you sure?" she asks into the afternoon quiet, sun filtering through the latticed windows of their upper level rooms.

"He looks like you," Sara says. "Just a little."

It's not an answer, so Nyssa lets it sit there for a moment.

"I'm sure I want to try," Sara assures her firmly. "Are you sure?"

"I would very much like to try."

* * *

fin

* * *

Author's Note #2:

I tried. I tried so hard to resist my babyficcing ways. But I couldn't. As always, I've taken bits of DC comics and Arrow canon and started to play with them. So yes, Damian is Damian Wayne, but obviously a lot of the many things that happen to him in DC will be very different in any future stories I write.

Also I know I'm not the first to have Nyssara raising or having a strong relationship with Damian; it seems to be a tempting idea for fandom.

Thanks so much!


End file.
